Jazz dance is a performance dance technique and style that first emerged in the United States in the early twentieth century. Jazz dance may refer to vernacular jazz or to Broadway or theatrical jazz. Both genres build on African American vernacular styles of dancing that emerged with jazz music. Vernacular jazz dance includes ragtime dances, Charleston, Lindy hop, and mambo. Popular vernacular jazz dance performers include The Whitman Sisters, Florence Mills, Ethel Waters, Al & Leon, Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Dawn Hampton, and Katherine Dunham. Theatrical jazz dance performed on the concert stage was popularized by Jack Cole, Bob Fosse, Eugene Louis Faccuito, and Gus Giordano.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., named in 1964 as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy. Opened on September 8, 1971, the performing arts center is a multi-dimensional facility: it produces a wide array of performances encompassing the genres of theater, dance, ballet, and orchestral, chamber, jazz, popular, and folk music; offers multi-media performances for adults and children; and is a nexus of performing arts education.
The Joffrey Ballet, based in Chicago, Illinois, is a premier dance company. The Joffrey regularly performs classical ballets, including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, and modern dance pieces. Many choreographers have worked with the Joffrey, including Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, George Balanchine, and founders Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey. Founded as a touring company in 1956, it was based in New York City until 1995 when it moved to Chicago. The company's headquarters and dance academy are in Joffrey Tower, and it performs its October–May season at the Auditorium Theatre. In 2020 the company will move its performance venue to Chicago's Civic Opera House through an arrangement with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Jazzercise is a dance fitness franchise company founded by Judi Sheppard Missett in 1969 and headquartered in Carlsbad, California, United States.
Chicago a cappella is a non-profit organization devoted to furthering the art of ensemble singing without any instruments. The group of professional singers began in 1993 by Jonathan Miller and conduct a series of performances annually. The organization displays a yearly subscription series for Chicago residents, produces studio recordings as well as live and broadcast-media musical content, and performs on tour and in special arrangements. The ensemble is known for their outstanding vocal abilities, innovative programming, and have a reputation of being a leader within the choral field. Expanding from a collection of a Gregorian chants to the Beatles and beyond, the singers are known for their wide repertoire including early works, vocal jazz, and spirituals. The ensemble is also a champion of performing works by living composers.
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is America's premier contemporary dance company based in Chicago. Hubbard Street performs in downtown Chicago at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance and at the Edlis Neeson Theater at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Hubbard Street also tours nationally and internationally throughout the year.
Gus Giordano, born August Thomas Giordano III, was an American jazz dancer, teacher and choreographer. He performed on Broadway and in theater and television. He taught jazz dance to thousands in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. He was the founder of Gus Giordano Dance School (1953), founder of Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago (1963), creator of the First American Jazz Dance World Congress (1990) and the author of Anthology of American Jazz Dance (1975). He taught at institutions around the world including American Ballet Theatre, The American University of Paris, Duke University, Joffrey Ballet, New York University and hundreds more. He choreographed award-winning shows for television, film, stage, commercials and industrials. Giordano is one of the founders of theatrical or Broadway jazz dance styles, not to be confused with African American vernacular jazz styles that he drew upon.
The Chicago Gay Men's Chorus (CGMC) is a choral organization in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1983 with fifty-five singers, the chorus currently consists of approximately 150 singing members and over 200 members in total.
Ballet Austin is the 12th largest classical ballet company in the US, and also operates the largest combined training facility associated with a professional ballet company in the United States. Each year the Ballet Austin company performs ballets from a wide variety of choreographers, including Stephen Mills.
Breandán de Gallaí, a.k.a. Brendan de Gallaí or Brendan Galway, is a former professional Irish dancer who is most famous for his lead role in Riverdance and as a TV personality on TG4. He is currently a dance director for Riverdance and an artistic director for the Ériu Dance Company.
Patti Rutland is an American choreographer and the artistic director of Patti Rutland Jazz, a contemporary jazz dance and hip hop dance company based in Dothan, AL.
Benjamin Feliksdal is a Dutch ballet dancer. He has danced as soloist and principal dancer with Het Nederlandse Ballet 1960, Het Nationale Ballet 1961/1971, and with the Royal Ballet of Flanders 1972/1973.
The Kansas City Ballet (KCB) is an American professional ballet company based in Kansas City, Missouri. The company was founded in 1957 by Russian expatriate Tatiana Dokoudovska. The KCB presents five major performances each season to include an annual production of The Nutcracker. In the 2016–2017 season, KCB grew to an all-time high with 30 company dancers, 15 second company dancers, 64 full-time and part-time staff, and a network of over 400 local volunteers. The KCB, its school, and its staff are all housed in, operate from, and rehearse at the Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity, a renovated, seven-studio, office, and rehearsal facility in Kansas City, Missouri, that opened in August 2011. The company performs at and is the resident ballet company at the nearby Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, a performance venue in downtown Kansas City that opened in September 2011.
Chicago Dance Crash is an American hip hop/contemporary dance company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company tours year round while sustaining a calendar year ‘season’ of local premiers and commercial work as well as a spring/fall educational outreach program. The company has received widespread critical acclaim while being considered one of the most notable American dance companies to emerge during the first decade of the 2000s.
The Northshore Concert Band (NCB) is a 100-member concert band based in Evanston, Illinois which performs throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.
Jessica Anne Deahr is an American contemporary dancer and choreographer. A dancer and first generation student of James Morrow's "fusion technique" as part of the now defunct contemporary dance company "Instruments of Movement", she was named Artistic Director of Chicago Dance Crash in November 2012. Throughout her career, Deahr has performed, taught, and choreographed around the world.
The Chicago Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois, governed by the Chicago Philharmonic Society. Founded in 1988 by principals of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, it is a musician-governed, non-profit organization consisting of nearly 200 classical music performers from the Chicago area. Since 2013, the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor has been Scott Speck.
Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater is an American Spanish dance company in residence at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. The Ensemble Español consists of the professional dance company, touring nationally and internationally throughout the year, as well as the youth company. The Ensemble Español also provides arts education programming to students across Chicago, runs community outreach programs/workshops, offers college level dance courses at Northeastern Illinois University, and produces the annual American Spanish Dance and Music Festival.
Eduardo Vilaro is a Cuban-American dancer, choreographer, educator, and artistic director & CEO of Ballet Hispánico. He first joined Ballet Hispánico as a principal dancer in 1985, leaving for Chicago a decade later to further his education and found the Luna Negra Dance Theater, for which he was artistic director. He returned to Ballet Hispánico in 2009 as artistic director, the second since the organization's founding in 1970, and has also served as CEO for the company since 2015 when a reorganization merged these artistic and administrative roles. His vision for Ballet Hispánico draws on the Latin dance traditions and educational outreach set forth by founder Tina Ramirez while responding to the more complex cultural landscape of the 21st century with a greater focus on diversity, inclusion, and community engagement.
Gaspard Louis is a Haitian dancer, choreographer, and artistic director. A former dancer with Pilobolus, he is the founder and artistic director of the modern dance company Gaspard and Dancers. Louis is also on the faculty at North Carolina Central University and the American Dance Festival.
